Author: Laura Peetoom

Darling Starling

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Yesterday, I heard the queerest bird song — like a vireo’s but not. I had to go outside and investigate. I tracked the sound to the area of its source and looked up, as vireos sing from the treetops; not that I expected to actually see it, since they are so well camouflaged. I’ve only seen one once, in early spring before the leaves had come out.

Bridal Wreath Spirea

While I was searching, I realized the sound was coming from ear level. “Are you in the bush?” I asked. (Yes, I talk to Nature.) The bird song stopped. I whistled and it answered; in the whistling was something very familiar — a prickly, rustly burble. I reached into the bush a metre or two away (a lovely, blooming spirea) and shook one branch. The song went silent. I concluded that my hunch was probably right: there was a starling in there, secretly trying out a vireo song!

It’s easy to dislike starlings. They form huge flocks and can do a lot of damage to a crop in a short time. They’re highly adaptive to urban life, too, and can often be seen arrayed on wires, murmuring, whistling and dropping lots of waste as they socialize. Most significantly, starlings are an introduced species that competes against and displaces native North American species. The first starlings were brought to North America and released by a fool who thought it would be nice to bring over all the birds mentioned in works by Shakespeare.

“Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but Mortimer, and give it to him to keep his anger still in motion.” 

Henry IV Part 1, Act 1 Scene iii

Nevertheless, starlings have pecked their way into my affections. They are amazing mimics. At different times I have heard a cat’s meow and a car horn coming from on high and, puzzled, looked up to see a solitary starling, shifting on a wire and looking pleased with itself. The most incredible performance I’ve witnessed was a starling sampling the songs of half a dozen other birds — the modus operandi of the Northern mockingbird. A mimic imitating another mimic: Wow!

I also can’t help but admire a flock of starlings in the air. Hundreds, even thousands, of individual birds behave as one, fluid entity, cavorting in the air the way certain schools of fish do in the ocean. It’s a wonder, to watch them paint their ever-changing shapes on the canvas of the sky.… Check out this National Geographic video and you’ll see.

P.S. Starlings aren’t particularly handsome but they are easy to identify. They’re a kind of dark no-colour with a little iridescence about the shoulders and their feathers have an untidy aspect. A flock will include many immature birds, which are speckled all over with “stars” of white — hence the name.

Tense Time

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This is on my mind.

We’re living in a tense time. Unable to live our lives in the usual way, we are missing the conscious and unconscious ways we feed, comfort and satisfy our deep selves. This means we’re going to encounter one another’s inner wailing infants much more often. Wailing infants can neither hear nor understand words. Apologies and explanations are useless. If you have tried and failed to appease someone who is really upset with you, don’t take it personally. Don’t respond with anger, impatience, annoyance. Be the grown-up. Respond with love.

May-June

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After the long winter and cold grey spring, and before the heat comes down to squash us all, there is a brief period when I feel as if I’ve been transported to another planet. It’s a fantastic place where the trees are pink, the grass is bright yellow and the air smells like flowers and is full of tiny flying creatures and music.

Depression Is a Subtle Liar

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Depression and its flip side, anxiety, are familiar to so many of us these days. Some struggle every day, others periodically; some experience them as a result of trauma or circumstance. Maybe you know these challenging states of mind yourself; maybe you know someone who is struggling. I wrote this for them and for you.

Depression is a subtle liar — the serpent in the garden of your mind. Its goal is that of any evil, which is the opposite of life. Its subtlety is that it lies upon your nature and your circumstances. Whatever depression can find to turn against you, it will use.

You might be relaxed, taking time to do things or simply inclined to wait until you know what’s urgent, what’s important, and what doesn’t matter. Depression will turn that into: I’m lazy. I’m disorganized. I’m a screw-up. You might be the first to begin an assignment, the group organizer, the one who keeps it all on track. Depression will turn that into: I’m a tyrant. I ruin things. People hate me. Your life might be going great, with a cool new friend or a stimulating new job, with a new place or a new hobby. You’re moving at a clip and depression’s lost in the dust. Then, as soon as you slow down, like a mosquito or a leech depression will settle and begin sucking the joy right out of you. And when circumstances are difficult? Depression will give you a great big push as soon as you start to slide downhill. 

Depression loves negative emotions. When they arise for healthy reasons, depression will turn their medicine into poison and fertilize them with its shit until they take over the whole garden. Depression’s favourite is shame, and its companion, guilt. In a healthy place, shame and guilt tell us that we have done wrong and spur us into making it right. Depression’s shame and guilt, in contrast, paralyze and sicken us. Depression also loves anger. Used rightly, anger also makes right what is wrong. Depression, on the other hand, uses it to destroy — and then turns your remorse to shame, a double whammy.

Depression will turn your strengths and gifts into burdens. Depression will inflate and solidify your weaknesses until they seem too big and too deeply rooted to tackle. Depression perverts the truth. You deserve love and kindness. If you feel otherwise, then depression is at work. Your friends and family care about you and welcome you however you are feeling. Their words and actions are true; depression’s interpretations are false. You are alive and you have a future. Depression whispers otherwise; but the truth will make you free. 

Sounds grand but I’m quite serious: a few truths about being a human being will help you counteract depression. To whit:

  • Truth Human beings need regular, nourishing food and water; need sleep; need exercise; need cleaning and care and hugs. Give yourself these things every day. Every single one. Whether you feel like (you deserve) them or not. You have a body and depression does not. You for the win!
  • Truth Human beings are creatures of earth and need to connect to earth things: sky, trees, water, flowers, animals. Connect with the earth every day, no matter what effort it takes (deliberate effort, if you live in a city) or what the weather is or how tired you feel. You can make decisions; depression can only influence them. You for the win!
  • Truth Humans are makers. Creators. Producers. Accomplish something every day, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. Some days, all you can manage is doing the dishes — so be it. That’s something! You can imagine a future; you can see the horizon. Depression just squirms around blindly. You for the win! 
  • Truth You are not the depression. The more you practise the first three truths the more you experience the fourth one. Slowly, like water dripping on stone, a space gets made inside where you feel you. 

Now, lots of people struggle with mood disorders — with medication and without, with meditation or prayer and without, with counselling and without. When you look for information it is easy to become overwhelmed. Depression will use that against you, making you feel too confused to wade through it all and, also, amplifying your inner critic: Medication is dangerous. Meditation takes too much focus/is weird. Counselling doesn’t work/is too expensive. So let me declare a fifth truth: You need and deserve help. Practising the truths above will shine a light through the fog of fear, anxiety and weariness that depression casts and help you a) find the right help for you and b) reach for it. 

You for the win!

© 2020 by Laura Peetoom 

Author’s Note

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In one of my writing projects, characters sometimes speak or think in a language other than English. As a writer, I need to be able to use that language when I feel it is necessary and I hope that reader will receive (consciously or subconsciously) the flavour or meaning that I am trying to convey in my choice. Of course, I understand, actually hope, that most of my readers won’t understand it. Small interjections that resemble those of English are pretty easy to figure out, and repeated words become familiar through context and use. But a whole sentence is a challenge that we both, writer and readers, will need to find a way through. 

There are various techniques for dealing with the use of a language other than English in a story, according to my experience as a reader. 

Glossary. Before the story if not much of the language is used, at the back if there’s a lot of it. To parse a sentence the reader looks up individual words until she gets the jist of the whole sentence.

Repeat in English. Give the phrase in the other language, then repeat it in English.

In-story translation. A creative variation on the above. Have a bilingual character repeat the question in English before answering it, or respond in such a way as to make the other speaker’s meaning clear.

Footnotes. Use the other language as desired, providing a translation in a footnote.

Endnotes. Same as above but using endnotes, either at the end of the chapter or chapter-by-chapter at the end of the story.

Instant translation. Introduced by e-reading. The publisher of the digital version of the book provides a pop-up translation feature that the reader can access by selecting the relevant word or phrase. 

Reader initiative. The reader enters the word or phrase into a translation app or asks someone who know the language to get the meaning. 

I confess I am an impatient reader and will guess at and or skip over foreign words and phrases until a sense of missing out on something begins to irritate me. Only then will I bother to use the tools the book provides. This includes footnotes; I’ll look at a few but ignore most of them, especially if the few I’ve looked at haven’t added anything significant to my reading. Endnotes even more so — I simply can’t be bothered to interrupt the flow and flip to the end of the chapter or the book. However, I will review them when I’m done reading the story. Same with glossaries — I’ll read through when the story is done to see if I missed anything.

What I’m saying is that I don’t think I’m the best guide as to what approach is the best here. So, I’m putting it out there. What should I do?

Wear Long Pants

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On a hot and humid summer day, it’s painful to cover up, I know. The only length to which I’ve been willing to go (LOL) is capri-length, but think about it: doesn’t that expose the very part of my skin most likely to experience a brush-by encounter with something green and ouchy?

I had cause to admonish myself on this point recently, when my husband took the narrow, very unofficial trail in back of our house down to Little Rouge Creek, just to see how Nature was coming along—in shorts. An hour later he returned, his legs now become neon signs of bushwhacking danger. The welts calmed down after a while but we guess he is allergic to whatever “rough-edged grass” (his description) he walked through. You just never know, do you?

Internal Filing System Coughs Up Trick!

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That trick I mentioned earlier popped up in the kitchen the other day! Little Sister, this is for you.

I was making pasta primavera and needed a little more butter to smooth the sauce. I didn’t want to take it from my butter pot because toast crumbs (Little Sister has celiac disease) and so I used my cheese slicer to harvest a few curls from the clean half-pound in my fridge.

cheese slicer - photo/picture definition - cheese slicer word and phrase image
A “cheese razor”

Have you met this sweet little tool? In Dutch and Swedish, it’s called a “cheese razor.” That’s very apt, because it makes razor-thin slices. And great butter curls. I’ve also tried to make chocolate curls with it but chocolate, being harder at room temperature than cheese and butter, tends to crumble under the pressure.

Skunks

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Next time your sensory organs are assaulted by the lingering evidence of a skunk’s most caustic emission, recite this mantra inwardly: “burnt bacon and coffee grounds, burnt bacon and coffee grounds.” After a while, the urge to gag will pass away.

Poison Ivy on the Trail

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Yesterday I spent about four hours outside, walking through meadows and woods. How I love September—“September the Golden” is how I think of this month, with the goldenrod in full bloom, early-turning foliage all yellow amongst the green and the maples not yet taking over with their eye-catching red. The new school year begins and people get a gleam in their eye: the engine of intention switches from idle to drive; that first brisk breeze of autumn comes in at the window and whispers, “Now.” I should say, however, that on this particular day that breeze was still afar off and the air was d—-d hot and still and, frankly, if it hadn’t been for my duties I would have been at home and resting comfortably inside. Nature rewarded me for seeing to my duties, however, with her wonderful and mysterious nourishment, as is her way…but I digress.

Thanks to Jim Yaki, whom I have never met but whose
blog contains some good photos of poison ivy and
not-poison-ivy in various environments.

One of the early-turning plants, is, most thankfully, poison ivy. Avoidance of poison ivy is a persuasive reason to stay on-path in a woodland park; in this park, the path through the meadows was mowed or maintained to about 2 m wide, so safe for dog and man. Poison ivy loves to lurk in meadows, shaded and disguised by grasses and shrubs and, increasingly, by dog-strangling vine, which (in a painful case of out of the frying pan, into the fire) may be out-competing even this. Anyway, in September, poison ivy becomes much easier to spot, the leaves first becoming mottled with yellow and even the widest leaves down-drooping from the stem or bending from each side of the central vein in that characteristic way; then, in a little while, turning red as a rash.

With the purpose of instruction, my trail mentor led our little group off-path, along a one-leg-wide defile; I spotted the ivy first, and then my mentor showed me a neat little trick: instead of trying to avoid the plant that had stretched across the path, she stepped right on it. She went on doing this until we were out of danger. This solves the problem of where to put your foot if stepping over an ivy plant, since, in a case like this, until you’ve emerged from the ivy patch stepping over or past one plant means putting your foot in another; or it makes you so unbalanced you’re at risk of swaying or tumbling into another plant inadvertently. I’m happy to report that my bare ankles got home unscathed (though I really should rinse off the soles of my shoes).

My Little Sister Visits

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One of my two little sisters was visiting this summer, and as I was preparing some food she observed me performing some little kitchen trick or another. “That’s a neat trick,” she said. “Do you have more? Could you teach me?” Those may not have been her exact words—understand that this is a dramatization for purposes of illustration.

“Honey, I have plenty of tricks up my sleeves,” I (perhaps) replied, “and I would love to share them with you. Trouble is, my internal filing system is so persnickety. I only remember these tricks when I need to use them.”

“Perhaps you could write them down as they occur to you, then,” said she (or something to that effect). 

An ideal way to commence would be with the trick I was using at the time: but alas, I cannot remember what it was. (Do you see what I mean about the filing system?) So I’ll offer you one of my favourites, which comes up often, in both mixed and feminine company, having to do as it does with the washing of clothes. Here it is:

Cleaning Grease Spots from Washable Clothing
I have used this trick even with old grease spots in thrift-shop clothing, and it always works. 

First, you need a bar of old-fashioned Sunlight laundry soap. It’s deep yellow and comes in a paper wrapper, usually in a high, hard-to-reach spot in the detergents aisle of your grocery store. This is a fat-based soap, and it works (said my mother, when she taught me this) because grease resists water and needs to bind with another, more soluble grease in order to be carried into the water and away.

1. Spot-dampen the grease stain with a wet rag. This is important because once the fabric is wet you may not be able to see the grease stain anymore. Spot-dampening limits your area so that you don’t miss the stain at the next step.

2. Wet your bar of Sunlight. Rub the bar directly on the stain or over the whole dampened area. This will not harm ordinary, washable clothing: I’ve used this method on some silks as well, with success.

3. Launder the article as usual. With heavy, dirty stains—from a bicycle chain, for example— you may have to treat and launder twice: once by hand, when the stain is fresh, and once again with your regular laundry.

To conclude, a note to the makers of Sunlight Soap: please, please don’t stop making it!

PS. Sunlight is also good for scrubbing up after you’ve refitted that bicycle chain.
PPS. Searching for an image for the original post, I found some alarming comments that indicated this soap was no longer available. A few months later I saw fresh packages at my local grocer’s. Thank you, Unilever!